The Family Budget That Works

NADINE ACEVES is a personal finance writer and family budgeting specialist who has spent the past decade helping ordinary families take control of their money without the shame, guilt, or complicated spreadsheets that derail most budgeting efforts.

What sets Nadine apart is where she started. Before she became a trusted voice in family finance, she was a single mother working two jobs, juggling childcare costs, and hiding from her mail because she was afraid of what the bills would say. She paid off more than forty thousand dollars in consumer debt over three years on an income that never broke fifty thousand dollars annually. That experience—slow, unglamorous, and marked by plenty of setbacks—shaped everything she teaches. She doesn't offer shortcuts. She offers a system that works even when life is messy.

Nadine's writing has appeared in *The Penny Hoarder*, *Forbes Advisor*, *Business Insider*, and *Woman's Day*. Her blog, The Kitchen Table Budget, reaches more than two hundred thousand readers each month with practical, no-nonsense advice on everything from meal planning on a tight budget to negotiating medical bills. She is a frequent guest on personal finance podcasts and has been featured on *The Clark Howard Show*, *So Money with Farnoosh Torabi*, and *The Rachel Cruze Show*.

She holds a certificate in financial counseling from the University of Georgia and serves on the advisory board of the Financial Wellness Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing budget education to underserved communities. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two children, where she continues to test her budgeting principles against the rising cost of groceries, the unpredictability of a teenager's social calendar, and the unending parade of things that break around the house. She answers every email she receives from her readers.